Ministers urged to learn from success of single-use bag fee, amid criticism that other measures have been delayed

Environmental campaigners have called on the government to learn from its own successes after official figures showed the use of single-use supermarket plastic bags had fallen 98% since retailers in England began charging for them in 2015.

Annual distribution of plastic carrier bags by seven leading grocery chains plummeted from 7.6bn in 2014 to 133m last year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Monday.

  • @astanixEnglish
    4•11 months ago

    The county north of the one I live in decided to just ban them completely. So the big chain store that used to have free paper or plastic bags switched to charging for the paper bags.

    This seems like such a better idea.